Wide-field imaging and flow cytometric analysis of cancer cells in blood by fluorescent nanodiamond labeling and time gating.

Nanodiamonds containing high density ensembles of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV(-)) centers are promising fluorescent biomarkers due to their excellent photostability and biocompatibility. The NV(-) centers in the particles have a fluorescence lifetime of up to 20 ns, which distinctly differs from those (<10 ns) of cell and tissue autofluorescence, making it possible to achieve background-free detection in vivo by time gating. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of using fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) as optical labels for wide-field time-gated fluorescence imaging and flow cytometric analysis of cancer cells with a nanosecond intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) as the detector.